Parties are within the margin of error

The real news Independents 40%  

You'll see similar trends nationally.  More and more Americans, disgusted by extreme partisanship, are choosing to ditch both parties.  If Democrats want to be competetive, we've got to take that into account.  Mark Warner had the right message: not Democrat or Republican, not left or right, but forward.  That message, a one similar to Obama's, is the right message for the new century.

why is Obama so far behind in the polls against McCain? Also, Rasmussen puts his negative ratings in VA at 47% (CQPolitics.com). Hopefully, that'll change when the campaigns start revving up.

Rasmussen has it McCain 47%-Obama 45% and McCain 47%-Clinton 43%.  Gallup has it Obama 45%-McCain 44% and Clinton 46%-McCain 46%.  In other words, it's a statistical dead heat right now between McCain and Obama, also with McCain and Clinton.  See Real Clear Politics for more.

is that the percentage identifying as Republican has declined from 33% to 27% (down 6 points) since 2004. The percentage identifying as Democratic has increased from 35% to 36% (up 1 point). The percentage of independents has increased from 32% to 37% (up 5 points).  Looks like Americans haven't gotten tired of "extreme partisanship" so much as they've left the Republican Party and become independents.

I have to respectfully disagree with your analysis, Lowell.  Six percentile of the voters have "left" the Republican Party, but only one percentile "joined" the Democratic Party.  (I used the quotation marks because these figures represent new voter preference as well as actual voter re-alignments.)  Over 80% of the Republican defections became Independents.

Dan is correct, based on these numbers.  The defections from the Republican party are not growing the Democratic Party by an equal amount.  Hence, the overwhelming majority of the voters who are disaffected by the "extreme partisanship" of the Republican Party don't see the Democrats as an attractive option.

That is an important distinction.  If the Democratic Party doesn't heed the message, then they will begin to hemorrage membership to the Independents as well.

What these numbers tell me is that the Republicans are winning the race with the Democrats to see which party will be replaced by a successful Third Party movement.  The Big Tent era of the Reagan Republicans is over and they now have more litmus tests for faithful membership than a graduate chemistry class.  Democrats should not yield to their more liberal wing and make the same mistake in reverse.  You can be a faithful Democrat and still be pro-life, or in favor of gun rights, or in favor of enforcement of immigration laws.

Did you read the entire Pew report?  

The Democratic Party has also built a substantial edge among independent voters. Of the 37% who claim no party identification, 15% lean Democratic, 10% lean Republican, and 12% have no leaning either way.

But this only proves my point.  The number of Independents who Lean Republican has been fairly constant for the past eight years while the number of Independents who Lean Democratic has risen only slightly and is now declining.  Given Bush's approval ratings change between late 2001 and now, you would have expected a much higher positive slope on the Lean Democratic line and some negative slope on the Lean Republican line.  Personally, I think that the Bush Effect has been largely neutralized by the Billary Effect.  

That "lean" number is deceptive, and probably reflects some amount of people who have gone from "Independent, Lean Dem," to solidly in the Democrat camp.

Yes, GOP leans have remained stable, and Democratic leans have declined, but that decline clearly tracks Democratic ID.

Honestly, to suggest that the controversial years of Clinton and the subsequent Hillary candidacy would come close to having the same effect on the electorate as eight years of corruption, incompetence, and just general idiocy of Bush and Cheney belies common sense.

 

Why do you assume that Independents who Lean Demo are closet Democrats who won't identify themselves as such?

Why belies "common sense" here, as you define it, is statistical proof.

I swear, you radical Democrats are bound and determined to follow the neo-con Republicans in their lemming charge over the edge.  Go for it!

I guess I didn't articulate my point well, so I'll give it another shot.

Looking at the chart Lowell provides, you look at the number of Leaners as demonstrating a wash, i.e., that the data reflects neither a drift toward the Democrats or the Republicans. You conclude this is due to negativity in the electorate toward Bill and Hillary Clinton as balancing out negativity toward Bush.

I'm not trying to put words into your mouth, but that is what I think you are saying.

My point was if you look at both graphs, the decline in independents who lean Democratic can be explained by some of those leaners finally falling over -- onto the Democratic side. In the meantime, way fewer voter are self identifying as Republicans, and arguably now see themselves as independents who lean GOP, keeping that number stable, but now including a greater percentage of formerly solid Republicans.

I wouldn't so much call those assumptions on my part as one possible interpretation to be drawn from the data. There are, of course, others. But the data most certainly does not "prove" your conclusion.

As for what "belies" common sense, it is your conclusion about the equivalence between the Clintons and Bush. The Bush presidency is a failed administration that more or less has hit rock-bottom, its remaining support mainly consisting of dead-enders.

You might not like Bill Clinton, and you might think Hillary is the she-devil, and no presidency is all good or all bad, but it requires a pretty jaundiced view to see the Clinton administration as a failed presidency.

Man, that made me thirsty!